What is Stellar?

Stellar Lumens is a blockchain project focusing on incorporating the distributed ledger invention into the prevailing financial system. Stellar was conceived by Jed McCaleb (the co-founder and ex CTO of Ripple) and Joyce Kim (a former lawyer) in 2014 with the development of a platform "Secret Bitcoin Project" that acted to hire alpha testers for the project.

Lumens (formerly "Stellar") is the native cryptocurrency of the Stellar blockchain. It is denoted by "XLM" ticker on the crypto market. XLM can be applied in various ways across the Stellar blockchain. Users must retain a minimum of 0.5 XLM in their accounts to support the blockchain and are required to pay a minimum transaction cost of 0.00001 Lumens.

The project's tactic of developing a mutual global financial network is egalitarian - rather than concentrating on either one side of the centralization/decentralization discussion, Stellar embraces a bipartisan stance, which simultaneously offers solutions to the centralized financial system and enhances access to cost-effective services to both the unbanked and underbanked.

What are the advantages of Stellar?

The Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP). In a consensus, all entities agree on certain terms and conditions. The Stellar blockchain needs a consensus strategy to enable the synchronization and verification of transactions across each node of the protocol. In the Stellar blockchain, a consensus is arrived at leveraging the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) within two to five seconds. SCP applies the Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) algorithm that was invented by David Mazieres, a distinguished professor of Stanford University.

Distributed Exchange. The Stellar protocol permits users to carry out cryptocurrency exchange services on the ledger. This service acts as an obligation for swapping digital currencies at the rates determined by users. Stellar exchange services are settled in order books with a distinct order book for every cryptocurrency.

Customers can see these order books and analyse the exchange trends followed by coins. The Stellar protocol facilitates swapping of both fiat and digital currencies, which also comprise cross transactions between both currency forms.

Multi-currency Transactions. A major advantage of the Stellar blockchain is its capacity to enable cross-currency transactions. Stellar customers can choose traditional currency or digital currencies. These transactions can be processed through three different ways: Conversion via an offer, by using XLM as an intermediary currency, or through a series of conversions.

Anchors. Anchors play an essential role in the transaction process. They act as a bridge that links the Stellar blockchain to the currencies. Anchors are financial institutions which are tasked with making deposits and offering credits to the conforming accounts. Users must trust them to process their deposits and withdraws.

How to store Stellar?

AA list of wallets that support XLM is provided on Stellar website. The list includes desktop versions, mobile and web wallets. Examples of Stellar Lumens wallets are Astral, Stellarport and Ledger.

The Stellar Development Foundation invested a sum of 100 billion XLM tokens initially; hence new XLM coins cannot be created through XLM mining. In inflation rate of 1% of Stellar Lumens price per year is placed on total coin supply. However, people can gain XLM tokens by acting as a node in the Stellar blockchain. You may always check the most relevant XLM price and XLM price chart on
CoinMarketCap.

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